Aftermath
by Gainis
Summary: It has been 100 years since the second Cylon war. The Colonials have returned to the 12 colonies.
1. Chapter 1

2145AK (After Kobol) it has been 100 years since the second Cylon war. The Colonials have returned to the 12 colonies. The Cylons have been, consumed in their civil war. Most of the radiation on Caprica has dissipated, but there still are hot spots where the Cylon nukes hit nuclear power plants and military installations. A complete survey of the system would have to be done to determine where the colonials would start re-building first.

"Admiral," the commander of the Battlestar Hestia said, we have entered orbit around Caprica. To which Admiral Thorn replied, send out survey teams to each of the colonies. When they return, have everyone assemble in the ward room. Lt. Andy "Skipjack" Anderson and his "co-pilot Lt. Ed "Rover" Strange arrived at Picon and started scanning. The planet was still hot; the cities and vast areas of the countryside have not yet recovered. Some areas, with higher levels of radiation, were pocked marked with craters. Ed said to Andy that must have been where the Picon shipyard or anchorage came down. Let's get this done and return to the Hestia.

Dr. Richards, the lead scientist, stood at the podium, we have gone over the data acquired by our survey teams. We can set up settlements on Caprica, Tauron, Gemenon, Aerilon, and Aquaria; All the other colonies were still too radioactive to have any permanent human present on them. We can take the radioactive debris from those planets use it for fuel in fission/fusion fast breeder reactors, these plants would run flat out; venting the excess heat into space, this way after 50 years or so the remaining colonies should also be habitable.

A lot has changed since they left the "Cyrannus star system" and resettled on Avalon. Partly to their meeting several alien races, the religious sect lost most of their sway over society. After all the Lords of Kobol were supposed to of created the universe only for them, and they have met several other species both alive and dead. When the religious leaders from Gemenon felt their power slipping away, they began enforcing religious laws on other colonists without regards to the Articles of Colonization. Riots broke out; the religious leaders never realized the growing percentage of the population that no longer believed in the Lords of Kobol. Some of the leaders tried to start a civil war but when they saw the percentage of the population that no longer supported them they quickly consented to a total re-write of the Articles of Confederation, This resulted in a separation of church and state. Now several different religions are practiced, the two main ones being "The Lords of Kobol" and "The One True God". But the largest percentage of the population was now atheists, jokingly believing that the Lords take care of those that take care of themselves.

This lead to a renaissance in the colonial society, people were amazed how religious dogma had held them back. In 2165 AK a scientist put forth a theory on dark energy or quantum vacuum zero-point energy and how an electromagnetic field can be manipulated with gravity waves and changed into a zero-point field releasing massive amounts of energy. With all this extra power their jump engines turned into hyperspace engines. When a ship arrived at its final destination, it sent the coordinates back to the starting location. A jump station was built at both locations with a master controller at the final destination whose job it was to keep ships from exiting hyperspace at a same physical location, thus creating a link. Once set up, this allowed instant travel from one point in space to any another. And as long as they stayed in known space there was no chance of exiting hyperspace into a celestial body.

As called out in the new Articles in 2175 AK a convention was held at Avalon with all colonies in attendance this included Caprica, Avalon, Tauron, Gemenon, Aerilon, and Aquaria. All the other colonies could not be colonized until the radiation was reduced. The new colonists from Avalon would be encouraged to resettle the outer colonies first. Most of these worlds suffered little from the nuclear attacks by the Cylons, and with the new zero point energy, they could be Terra-formed to a point to rival the other colonies. Also, these colonies would be administered by the central government, and once they became self-sufficient, they would be allowed to have full voting rights. One of the reasons humanity was almost wiped out was their ancestors never explored past the Cyrannus system so explorations fleets would be sent out to explore new worlds, to expand human civilization.

Back on Avalon President Aldridge and his advisers met with Dr. Richards and Admirals Thorn, Marcus and Silverman. Each of you gentlemen will be given the command of a squadron that will be comprised of one heavy cruiser and three destroyers.

Dr. Richards, would you please acquaint the Admirals and some of my advisors, who may not be aware of some of the details about the ships. Dr. Richards stood up and said, as some of you may have known with our old FTL drives just before we jumped a shield was created this is what the bright white light was. We never had the power before to sustain this phenomenon. We always had to let it fall through to the actual jump. We can now sustain the first part of the jump procedure. Hence, a shield was created around the ship. Adm. Marcus then asked about the beam weapons, to which Dr. Richards replied. Well as you know we had Plasma type weapons in the first Cylon war, but they so drained the vessels energy to a point that it was helpless after the beams were fired, but now with the zero point energy development we have excess energy, and this allows us to install beam weapons on all our ships. And these weapons will enable us to reduce our Viper complements. Where before we had a finite number of projectiles for our point defense weapons now we are only limitation is by the ships power. Therefore, you will be able to sweep enemy fighters from space and there is no range restrictions. If you can see it you can hit it. You will find that our main limiting factor now is the targeting computers and how fast they can switch from one target to another. Due to our recent discovery of zero point energy, you almost have a limitless supply of electrical power; they will also have reaction less drive engines for propulsion when not in hyperspace. These are called Q-Thrusters, and will give you a top speed of 45% of the speed of light. Any faster and the time dilation problems kick in.

The heavy cruiser will have an old sty[e FTL drive as backup, but not the destroyers. The ships zero point energy generators should last anywhere from five to ten years depending on how long you spend in hyperspace and how long you spend in battle.

Adm. Thorn took the shuttle over to the shipyard where the Gideon was receiving its final touches; this would be Thorn's flagship. Adm. Thorn walked into CIC and said status Commander Richardson, who was the Gideon's CO. Well, the yard technicians are just finishing up aligning the hyperspace modules. We should be good to go by the end of the day. Commander Benson Thorn's Chief of Staff walked in, Benson what are the status of the destroyers, Adm. They have been ready for a few days we are just waiting for yard did finish up with the Gideon. Adm. I was told by Fleet command to inform you that we will have several technicians from research and development, they will be working on a new kind of computer it uses photonic modules in place of silicon chips. The power requirements of these computers will be much less that our old ones and much faster. They would like to keep one bank of point defense weapons to run tests on. Okay, Benson I would of liked to be involved in the original conversation. But I guess I've got to except that those egg heads over at research and development live and work in a world of their own. Just make sure that they know if I want those weapons back I will have them promptly. I can't control the orders that they get from research and development, but they may find it difficult working from their quarters. Commander Richardson, Commander Benson, have all senior officers and my staff meet in my briefing room in one hour, I will go over our mission's objectives.

One hour later in Adm. Thorn's briefing room, well gentlemen lets first go over the big picture on what we and the first and third squadron will be doing. The first fleet under the command of Adm. Mackey will proceed down the Virgo arm of the galaxy, Adm. Martina will go in the opposite direction, and we will proceed to a point on the edge of the Virgo's arm. Each of the squadrons will build jump stations at locations of sufficient resources or those systems that our researchers deem to warrant in-depth exploration. We will build a jump station at the edge of the Virgo's arm. From there we will proceed via hyperspace to the Pegasus arm. You will all keep Commander Benson informed of any significant developments in your commands. At this time, I would like to turn the floor over to Captain Winters. As you all know myself and the six technicians under my command, are from R&D. Our primary responsibility is to perfect the computer systems for firing the point defense beam weapons. Also, we will try to get a better understanding of how far we can have instant communications via the jump stations we create along the way. But also I would like to remind you that we all consider the Gideon to be our home for the duration of this mission, so if we could help you in any way please just let me know. Also, Sgt. Reiter whose responsibility is to monitor the hyperspace engines and the drain on the zero point energy generators would be available to stand watches in your engineering spaces. Adm. Thorn and then stood up and said, All right, gentlemen, we got a full day tomorrow so let's adjourn this meeting for now.

At 0600AM sharp, Adm. Thorn entered CIC. Commander has the rest of the squadron checked in, yes Admiral all ships report ready all systems are green. The Gideon and the rest of the squadron entered hyperspace and proceeded to the edge of the Virgo arm of the galaxy. It was a two-day journey and although uneventful they did find one system that warranted a jump station. It had an asteroid belt that was very rich in iron and rare minerals; it also had a habitable planet that was suitable for colonization. Capt. Winters asked for a meeting with Adm. Thorn, as you know Adm. Thorn, when we are in a warp bubble, is very hard to stay in approximation with other ships. Plus there is the problem of more than one ship collapsing their warp bubble at the same time and same physical location. It is very inefficient to always to have one ship proceed ahead and then transmit its coordinates back to the rest and have the squadron travel one at a time to the new location. Therefore, we have to find a way to communicate while in hyperspace. We have done some research with two ships entering hyperspace and traveling to a specific coordinate and exiting hyperspace only to find out they can be up to a light year apart as you could see this is not satisfactory for fleet maneuvers. I have several procedures that fleet research and development would like to be tested to resolve this problem. With this Adm. Thorn interrupted, you know I was a very much against all of this from the very beginning I wanted to take a Battlestar squadron and let all these other items be tested and developed back at the colonies. But I was over ruled by the Admirals at Fleet Headquarters, they caved in, to the pressure from the politicians, we may have got rid of the priests but we still have the dam politicians with us. We still did pretty well so far but of course, we are still in known space this will become a problem after tomorrow when we jump into the void. With this Capt. Winters smiled and said I noticed you used jump and hyperspace interchangeably they are not the same thing, and this could lead to communication problems, later on, is just something we have to be aware of I realize it's hard to teach old dogs new tricks. With this Adm. Thorn interrupted Capt. Winters I know you and your people think mostly of yourselves as scientists and engineers, and you will find that I can be very accommodating, but don't push your luck. The next day at 4 o'clock the Gideon exited from hyperspace. Commander Richardson did a scan of the area in front of them and determined that the number of celestial bodies/solar systems per hundred cubic light-years was less than ten this constituted the void since using the word void was a misnomer as space is never truly empty. Adm. Thorn set up a video conference to the captains and XO's of all the ships. The Gideon will proceed approximately 100 light years into the void; we will stop and transmit our location back to the rest of the squadron then you will proceed one at a time to our location. The Gideon will be transmitting a subspace beacon; you will see if you can detect this by scanning for distortions in the space-time continuum. I request that during these tests you go quiet turning off any equipment you have except for life support and the hyperspace engines. With this, the Gideon left on the first real leg of their voyage.


	2. Chapter 2

Aftermath Chapter 2

In 2045AK, the resident population of the Avalon was 23,191,876, and 100 years later the resident population has grown to 150,697,361. This was the result of a very active advertising campaign by the government. They simply encourage the colonials to have more babies, and Adm. Stryker, who led the original exodus from the 12 colonies, insisted that they do not enter the "Cyrannus star system" proper, but scanned the outer settlements and mining colonies for colonials that may have survived the initial Cylon attack.

At Adm. Thorn's weekly status meeting with Capt. Winters, the way we are preceding it will take years for us to reach the Pegasus arm. Therefore, I am ordering Cmdr. Richardson to stay in hyperspace for at least 500 light years then we will send a message back to the rest of the squadron of our location. Capt. Winters, where are we at in having a method to communicate while in hyperspace. Adm. Thorn we have determined that just before the destroyers arrive, they can detect some form of distortion in the space-time continuum, we are looking at ways to increase our detection range by increasing the power of the beam. Also, we are investigating how we can modulate this distortion to verify it is our beam and not some other anomaly. After a few more (jumps) it was determined that the destroyers were seeing the beacon from the Gideon, also by reviewing the initial FTL programs they always initialize the coordinates to zero. So a test was run where the first destroyer would initialize the coordinates to .001 and the second destroyer .002 then the first destroyer would move off one light year and see where the second destroyer came out of hyperspace. By trial and error, it was determined that if they initialized their FTL coordinates by .00016, and the second by .00032 they would both exit hyperspace within one kilometer of each other. Now the only problem that remained was how to communicate this between the ships in real time. A technician had a wild idea they could use an ancient form of amplitude modulation with the beacon since it was only necessary to communicate with numbers. A meeting was set up with Fleet headquarters to deliver all this to them since there was a certain amount of danger in this procedure. Adm. Thorn ordered the squadron to travel 1000 light years distance and then exit hyperspace. Everything worked as planned, with the squadron all exiting hyperspace within 1000 km of each other. Fleet headquarters then ordered Adm. Thorn to continue the trip via hyperspace to the Pegasus arm of the galaxy. They would continue to run tests and perfect this form of hyperspace travel. Adm. Thorn ordered Cmdr. Richardson to go the remaining approximately 9000 ly to the Pegasus arm along with the rest of the squadron. When they exited hyperspace, they were all within the planned one km of each other. Any ship that did not arrive at the location had standing orders to travel back to the last jump station.

Cmdr. Richardson stated that they still had approximately 30 ly to travel to reach the first system on this side of the Pegasus arm. He also said that it appears we have a much better-defined edge to the Pegasus arm of the galaxy. The systems in front of them are on the outer edge of several hundred systems. The squadron preceded to this first system this group. When they arrived at this system, they built a jump station. A jump station merely consisted of a habitat for 20 technicians and a subspace transmitter. Back in the colonies, a small ship was developed to travel between these stations with supplies and a relief crew; there was concern about the isolation the crews would have to endure. So a rotation was set up for them to spend time back in the colonies while relief personnel would take over the duties at the jump station. Also, in time they would be fully automated.

Adm. Thorn ordered Cmdr. Richardson to begin scans of all the nearby systems. After a brief survey of the system, it was determined that it only contained four rocky planets, and none of them were in the habitable zone. After a few days Cmdr. Benson requested Adm. Thorn at his convenience and the Gideon's science officer to attend a meeting to discuss the finding in the neighboring systems. All of the squadrons senior officers would be requested to be in attendance Cmdr. Benson introduced the Gideon's science officer Lieut. Jensen. We had scanned a score of systems, and we found two that not only appeared to have planets in the habitable zone but from one of them we are receiving electromagnetic waves. Adm. Thorn then ordered the squadron to proceed to this system but to remain a discreet distance away and hope that whoever inhabited this system would be unable to detect them.

It took two weeks to hear back from fleet HQ they suggested using mathematics to start communication which was, after all, suppose to be the universal language of the universe. Adm. Thorn then ordered Lieut. Anderson to proceed with the stealth raptor, he would be followed at a discreet distance behind by the rest of the squadron. Lieut. Anderson proceeded to approximately 10 km from where the mining activity was after a few minutes of exiting stealth mode he began to transmit what we hoped would be both detected and understood by the people of the system all activity in the asteroid field ceased. The three large vessels that were in orbit around the third planet proceeded to move to Lieut. Anderson's location. Lieut. Anderson radioed back to the Gideon well, at least we got their attention. One of the alien vessels proceeded ahead of the other two and stopped in front of Lieut. Anderson's raptor. In CIC on the Gideon Adm. Thorn asked if we could decode what they are saying. To which Capt. Winters replied it seems to be a numerical sequence. Adm. one of the procedures that we got from Fleet headquarters is essentially an AI program that will try to learn their language I suggest we let it carry on from here. Also, the communications officer stated that they are receiving what could be a video signal and with some modifications we could put it on a view screen. Adm. Thorn asked if any unusual energy signatures were coming from the alien ships. Capt. Richardson if we detect any energy spikes or signs of hostility have Lieut. Anderson go to stealth mode immediately and get out of there. Okay, gentlemen, we all got some work to do so let's see if we can get some communication going before they decide to stop communicating and start shooting.

After 20 minutes or so a message started to appearing on a view screen stating "what are your intentions " to which Adm. Thorn had the communications officer reply "we are peaceful explorers and wish to establish communications with you." The CIC crew was shocked when almost immediately a response came back, do you have an ambassador on board we will meet with you in the landing bay of the ship that is directly in front of your small vessel. It can land in our landing bay which your pilot should be able to see. Be advised that our environment is not compatible with yours. Your ambassador will have to make allowances for this; we would suggest a small breathing mask will be required. Other aspects of our environment should not cause a problem. The temperature and other gasses in our atmosphere should not be harmful. We just have evolved in a much lower oxygen atmosphere. Adm. Thorn stated, well so much for the Lords of Kobol, in some ways I feel these people if I could refer to them that way, maybe more advanced than us. Cmdr. Benson asked to no one, in particular, I wonder if our not having an ambassador was also an oversight. Capt. Richardson, I want to speak to Lieut. Anderson. Lieut. Anderson, they want to speak to and ambassador how would you like a temporary promotion and talk to them aboard their ship, this will be completely voluntary on your part. To which Lieut. Anderson replied sure why not, I always wanted to meet an alien I just hope they already had lunch. Another message appeared on the view screen; please keep your other three vessels in place as we've had both good and bad contacts with other races.

Lieut. Anderson proceeded to the closest ship to him he saw what appeared to be a landing bay; he asked if this was the bay he was supposed to enter. The reply came back yes just stay in your vessel until the doors behind you close so that we can re-pressurize the bay, then you should be able to exit your vessel with a breathing mask. Are you the only person on the vessel or are there more. Lieut. Anderson stated that his copilot was the only other person on the ship. Lieut. Anderson landed in the bay and waited for the door to close. He monitored the atmosphere and except for the low oxygen content he would be all right. He even could exist for a short period without the breathing mask. His monitor for the outside atmosphere was flashing green which meant that except for the low oxygen level the atmosphere was okay. A solid green light would've indicated all was okay. I am concerned about the bay closing, but I guess there's no going back now.

Lieut. Anderson put on his oxygen mask, his copilot Lieut. Ed Strange stayed in his spacesuit. Well, Skipjack keep monitoring me and if anything happens put a missile in that door and get the hell out of here. The door of the raptor opened and Lieut. Anderson saw three bipedal beings standing a few yards away they resembled the humans but had much larger chest and were about 7 feet tall. A thought entered Lieut. Anderson's mind. We would be very upset if your copilot fired a missile in the landing bay as we are peaceful beings and realize what you said may have been in jest. Also, some of us are Telepathic, and this is how we will communicate with you at first. Lieut. Anderson exited the raptor and not being a trained ambassador the only thing he could think of saying was "we come in peace" to which he thought he detected a smile on one of the beings faces, well a little bit of humor never hurt. Lieut. Anderson, we do not believe your vessel will be able to communicate back to the other ships, but we will transmit everything that transpires. Would you please follow me to a room where we can be more comfortable? To which Lieut. Anderson replied Skipjack did you get all that to which he replied yes. One of the beings held out a hand and pointed to an exit from the landing bay. He followed to a room with an ornate table and several chairs. He stated that he was not an ambassador, and maybe a meeting should be set up with senior officers on the ship. The being that seemed to be the one communicating with him stated we understand that, and your attempt at humor about it put us at ease. Since obviously you are as nervous as us, about all of this. Why don't you take this device which you can place on your body, and it will allow for instant translation between our two languages? Also, you could take it back to your commander or leader, whoever will speak for you. Lieut. Anderson took the device and placed it on his uniform and thought well that was short and sweet. Lieut. Anderson returned to the landing bay a little disappointed; he felt a little rejected.

Lieut. Anderson sat in the briefing room waiting for Adm. Thorn and the rest of the senior staff to arrive. Well, Lieut. Anderson report, sorry Adm. but I guess they picked up pretty quick that I wasn't an ambassador they gave me this device that allows us to communicate with one another, and they also requested that a senior officer meets with them to negotiate and explain what we are doing here. Okay Adm. Thorn said, I don't believe we should play around with these guys, so I will be going to the next meeting along with someone from Capt. Winters group and a medical doctor with a psychology background. Also, I believe I should take a communications officer. I won't be talked out of this, people, Cmdr. Benson will be in command while I am gone. Let's return to CIC and find out if this is acceptable to them. Upon entering CIC Adm. Thorn asked if they still had a link open to the aliens. Yes, Adm. they requested that we leave this link open you can either type on the console or use the handset. With that Adm. Thorn picked up the headset, I am the commanding officer of the squadron and would like to speak to whoever you feel is appropriate. Also, be aware that I have sent back to my headquarters for a full diplomatic team. They should arrive in approximately two days. Will that be acceptable? Yes the aliens responded and Adm. Thorn until your full diplomatic team arrives we would like to brief you on the situation in this part of the galaxy. OK, would you like me to return in Lieut. Anderson's Raptor so we could speak in person. Yes, we will be waiting for you. Adm. Thorn turned to Cmdr. Richardson, and said, have whoever Capt. Winters choose along with the medical officer in the landing bay.

The raptor once again returned to the alien ship with Lieut. Shirley Johnson, who was the astrophysics officer, in Capt. Winters group, and Lieut. Wilson, ship's psychologist, and Major Stiles Adm. Thorn's communication officer. One of the aliens approached him and said would you please follow me Adm. Thorn and we will go to where we could be more comfortable for our meeting. Adm. Thorn then followed the aliens to the same conference room as before. The alien produced three more communication devices for the group. Can you Adm. Thorn, please explain to us what you wish to accomplish. Well, as Lieut. Anderson may or may not told you we are peaceful explorers, and you are our neighbors across the void to what we call the Virgo arm of this galaxy. We want to become familiar with all the races that surround us in the hopes of opening both cultural and trade agreements. What can you tell me about this sector of the galaxy? With this, the aliens looked at one another and were quiet for a moment. Well, first I think you should be aware that I am not part of the ship's company but am from the court of our leader. Who I am also empowered to speak for, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the diplomatic team, but since you are in command of the squadron of ships, I believe for your safety there are some things we should brief you on before you continue your journey.


	3. Chapter 3

Aftermath Chapter 3

The alien who directed them to the conference room stood up. First, I believe we should do some introductions I am Nager the first Lord of interplanetary relations in the court of Taubvol, the leader of the Draconian people. It is my responsibility to handle our dealings with you. To my right is Rushali Planner, who is my assistant, he also happens to be a telepath. To his right is Capt. Sudub, the commander of this vessel the people you see behind us our security detail. Adm. Thorn since we already know your name would you please handle the introductions for your group with this he sat down and Adm. Thorn stood up I am the Admiral in command of a squadron of ships from the 12 colonies of Kobol. To my right is astrophysics Lieut. Shirley Johnson a scientist. To her right is Lieut. Wilson, our ship's psychologist, and Major Stiles, my communication officer. As I stated before we have a diplomatic team en route and our goal is to establish friendly relations with you for both a cultural exchange and trade. Of course, we will respect your borders, but when we leave here, we would like to progress further into this cluster of systems. With this Adm. Thorn sat down, well Adm. Thorn, of course, we will allow you free passage through our territories, but please be aware that as you proceed deeper into the galaxy, you will encounter our neighbor the Tauleer. We have had a low-level war with them for the past 250 years, and no real contact for the last 25 years. As a matter of fact we never truly had any real dialogue with this race. We have sent ambassadors but, they simply failed to return. Adm. Thorn then asked, what information can you give us on their military? To which Lord Nager replied, they have a warship. It has both particle weapons; I believe you call them rail guns and beams. If you encounter one of these ships it will be with smaller support ships that will have one large beam weapon in the bow, they got these by capturing one of our harvesters and re-engineering the beams we used to harvest asteroids into a military weapon. There are always 5 to 10 of the ships with one battleship. Capt. Richardson then asked what about fighters, we have small atmospheric fighters and some of our smaller scout ships have weapons. But due to the effectiveness of beam weapons and the very heavy armor on our warships we have found fighters in space to be obsolete. We can't control what you do once you leave here but we would ask you not to contact the Tauleer. You will be coming from our territory, and we fear that they will view this as a hostile act. We will address with your diplomats.

Back at the Gideon, Adm. Thorn entered CIC, Cmdr. Richardson; we will be leaving as soon as all our ships report ready. We will stay in hyperspace for at least 150 ly at the request of the Draconians. I will be in my office if I am needed back in CIC. Adm. Thorn barely set down at his desk when the intercom went off. Thorn here, Adm. we just lost communications with the Excelsior. I have dropped out of hyperspace and will attempt to get back communication with them. Adm. Thorn returned to CIC and asked Cmdr. Richardson if he was back in communications with the Excelsior. Yes, Adm. It appears that they had a fire and had dropped out of hyperspace. We have their location, and I am plotting a course to them now, we should be there in a few minutes. When the Gideon arrived at the Excelsior's position, Excelsior actual this is Adm. Thorn, please give me your status. Major Bolton, Excelsior's commandeering officer. Replied we had a fire, and we lost one of the conduits between the zero point energy generators and the hyperdrive. The insulation on the cables overheated and that's what caused the fire we can only assume that there was a short circuit. My engineering officer had been monitoring our zero point energy usage; it was within safe parameters, but we were still the thirsty ship in the squadron. One moment Adm. my engineering officer is trying to contact me. Adm. Thorn asked that they all be conferenced in, Major Stevenson what's the status. To which the Major replied Adm. it looks like there was a defect in the main cable from the zero point energy generator to the hyperdrive the cable had insulation wore away and a short developed this heated up until it eventually caused the fire. We should have the hyperdrive engine back in approximately 20 minutes. The Adm. and Capt. Richardson was then interrupted the by the DRADIS operator; we have three ships inbound; they will be here in approximately 10 minutes. Their profiles fit what was given us by the Draconian as Tauleer. Contact the ships using the Draconian translator and let them know that we will be out of their space as quickly as possible. The Gideon was classed as a heavy cruiser since she only carried one Viper squadron and one Raptor squadron. But with three large plasma weapons mounted on her bow which had a field of fire of 120° or 60° either side of center. Her point defense weapons were not in individual mounts but a ceramic band that ran down each of her sides they were also on the top and bottom of the ship. Resulting in a field of fire of 180° also up to three beams can emanate from any location along the band. When Capt. Winters heard Capt. Richardson lament now that we have decent antimissile anti-fighter weapons it looks like we are not going to run into fighters, he replied not to worry Capt. Richardson, we could juice up those babies so that they are effective against small destroyer size ships. They also had 24 launch tubes for nuclear missiles. She was probably the equal to a small Battlestar. The destroyers were set up pretty much the same way, but they only had two beam weapons in their bows and 12 launch tubes.

The communications officer spoke up, and he said I believe I have contact with the Tauleer. Adm. Thorn replied put them on the speaker. Unidentified ships this is the Tauleer vessel Bomer stand down and be prepared to be boarded. Tauleer vessel this is the 12 colonies of Kobol ship Gideon, and we were merely trying to pass through your territory, we desire no combat, with you but would rather open communications to get a better understanding of both our cultures. After a few minutes, Tauleer vessel replied, the communication device you are using is very similar to that used by our enemy the Draconian, once again stand down or be destroyed. Adm. Thorn two of the vessels that do not have the support ships are bearing off to our left I believe they are trying to flank us. Capt. Richardson follow those two ships, have the destroyers Excelsior and Hera stay with the other one. Hold your fire until they fire upon us I would still like to try to avoid a shooting war if I can. Have all ships prepare for combat. Launch, the Raptor, and Viper squadrons have the vipers shadow the Raptors and stay away from their capital ships. The Raptors will have a full load of anti-ship missiles. Capt. Richardson stated that the battleships appeared to be quite a bit slower than the colonials. The support ships were, as fast or slightly faster, the five of them left the battleship they were in formation with and headed for the Excelsior. A beam of blue light exploded from the front of one of the support ships and impacted the Excelsior shields. To which Adm. Thorn broadcasted to his squadron, we are under fire, all ships return fire. The remaining support ships continued to fire on the Excelsior. Their only weapon was an ION cannon in a fixed mount on their bow; it only could be aimed by turning the whole ship. The destroyer's plasma weapons were causing damage to the Tauleer ships, along with the point defense weapons which were also effective against the support ships, although they had to lock on for at least five seconds. But soon chunks of armor began to be peeled off the enemy ships. Major Stevenson kept his plasma weapons on the battleship and his other beams on the support ships. The Gideon was now close enough to engage the two Tauleer ships in front of her. They were already firing their rail guns at the Gideon and although it shields were holding they were down to 85%. The Gideon fired its plasma weapons, and large chunks of armor started to be peeled off if a plasma weapon hit where the armor was missing it went inside the ship causing massive damage. The Excelsior and Hera, now that the support ships were destroyed were engaging the Tauleer battleship the plasma weapons were doing damage. But, they were also sustaining some damage to the shields the Excelsior shields were down to 35%. Adm. Thorn ordered her to withdraw behind the Gideon if the shields got to 25% but before this happened, the Tauleer ship started to withdraw lost all its support ships. The Hera was ordered to continue to fire on this ship; the Excelsior was ordered to repair its shields and return to the Gideon. The shield emitters would overheat due to the energy they received from enemy fire; They could be replaced from inside the ship. If you let the shields go to zero, or so low the next barge took them out completely you lost your shields for the rest of the battle. It is tough to replace an emitter, without the supporting beams. But as Laura Roslin use to say sometimes you have to roll the hard six.

Cmdr. Richardson informed Adm. Thorn that one of the Tauleer battleships that were engaging them now seem to be dead in the water (an expression held over from the old wet Navy) the Raptor squadron was ordered forward to fire a salvo of anti-ship missiles at the remaining battleship. Six of the anti-ship missiles were destroyed by the battleships point defense weapons but the remaining 18 impacted with devastating results. The Raptor squadron had 12 ships, and each fired two missiles when the battleship was struck by the missiles it exploded. By this time the ship that appeared to be dead began slowly turning away. Since all the ships that were previously facing the Colonials were either destroyed or withdrawing, Adm. Thorn ordered all his ships to form up on the Gideon and cease firing. The Raptor and Viper squadrons were ordered to land back aboard to Gideon. Adm. Thorn called the Excelsior to find out the status of the repairs to the hyperdrive engine. Major Stevenson reported that the repairs work is complete, and they were now capable of hyperspace travel. He further stated that they did not put the cables back in the conduit but placed foam insulation around them and let them lay on the deck. It's not pretty, but I believe this is a better solution until we find out why the insulation failed in the first place. After the Raptor and Viper, squadrons were secured all ships entered hyperspace. Capt. Richardson find me a nice quiet system where we can ensure all battle damage is repaired and have a meeting to discuss what just transpired. Cmdr. Benson called Adm. Thorn's quarters, Adm. we have exited hyperspace, and there is no sign of any systems in the vicinity that have warp signatures or electromagnetic waves. Benson call Cmdr. Richardson and have him explore the nearest systems with a raptor. I will be in CIC in about 10 minutes. Adm. Thorn entered a CIC and said Cmdr. Richeson report; there are three systems that we are in our vicinity. I sent a stealth raptor to each one, two of them have reached their objective, and I expect to hear from them any minute the third will be another few minutes. Cmdr. Benson, I was reading your report back to fleet headquarters about our concerns that the Gideon and even the Raptors have FTL drives, but not the destroyers, I know space is at a premium on them, but I want to stress this as strongly as possible. We very easily could have lost the Excelsior when she lost her hyperspace drive, and we are finding difficulty with very short hyperspace travel which would be ideal for an FTL drive. And, did you see the Excelsior's engineering officer report on the accident; it wasn't defective insulation on those cables. They chafed through on a sharp edge in the conduit. I want to recommend a failsafe program to check this on all the ships. I especially want this to be accomplished in the squadron before the end of the month. If any captain has a problem completing this in the allotted time have them communicate back to you and we will get them help from Capt. Winters or our engineering department. All the Raptors reported in and each of the systems that they went to have no signs of life and no activity of any kind in any direction for at least 15 ly. Cmdr. Richardson proceed to the closest system and Cmdr. Benson set up a meeting in my conference room with all ships commanding officers and XO's. Include Capt. Winters and the Excelsior engineering officer.

The Gideon arrived at the system which had one planet in the habitable zone, but it was found to be without any signs of life. A meeting was convened on the Gideon in Adm. Thorn's conference room. After everybody settled in, Cmdr. Benson took to the podium; this will be our first formal status meeting as a result of the accident on the Excelsior and our recent battle the results of this meeting to be forwarded back to fleet headquarters. I have the final report from Major Stevenson and his chief engineering officer on the accident. It was caused by chafing in the power cables to the hyperdrive. There were sharp edges inside the conduit that exacerbated the problem. That is a failure in quality control at the shipyard. Also, there should have been spacers installed around the cable. We have ongoing inspections of the conduits on the ships in the rest of the squadron, although we have found no situations as bad as what existed on the Excelsior, we have found missing spacers. The sharp edges are also being addressed. This is contrary to standard colonial shipbuilding practices, and we fully expect that fleet headquarters will tighten up the quality control procedures in these areas. Now as for the battle, all ships report their effectiveness is back to 100%. We lost three raptors and one crew of three; SAR successfully rescued the rest. We do not totally believe the Draconian that the Vipers and Raptors, would be ineffective in battle, but we should have used them against the Draconian support ships not kept them with the Gideon, The support ships where less maneuverable but as fast as our ships. Also, there only weapon was an ION cannon mounted in the bow it had to be aimed by turning the whole ship. These ION cannons did the most damage to our shields. The destroyer's plasma beams were very effective in peeling away the armor on the battleships. At one point the Excelsior shields were reduced to 27%. This is very dangerous and if more of the Tauleer ships appeared she would've found herself in trouble. In future battles, I would recommend that a ship withdraws at 50% and the shield emitters be allowed to cool down, or replaced as necessary before returning to battle. I realize that the necessities of battle will not always allow this. At this time, I would like to turn a meeting over to Capt. Winters who will announce some changes that will be made to our weapons. With this Capt. Winters stood up; I believe I have some news that you captains will enjoy. The beam weapons on the side of our ships are fired from a ceramic band. Not individual mounts this ceramic band will handle a great deal of more power. So by simply increasing the size of the cables to and from the control panels and the bands we could increase the power output by at least 200% this will reduce the time on target that is required to destroy a support ship down to one second. Also, we have been able to upgrade the targeting computers successfully so that they will be able to reduce the time that it takes to detect a destroyed target and switch to the next. On the surface, you may think this is the Holy Grail for close in support weapons, but remember that the ships we are targeting are moving at a percentage of the speed of light, as we are. So one second is quite a long time but of course, it's a lot better than the five seconds that was required before. With the advent of these new ships and the shields and beam weapons along with the Q – Thruster it will change how we do battle the days of one Battlestar standing toe to toe with a Baseship are gone forever. Now it will be all about speed and maneuverability with one ship emerging from battle with little or no damage while the other is totally destroyed. The Viper is in the past; they no longer are afforded the time required on target to do any real damage. And why have vipers if their only purpose is to engage other fighters that are ineffective against the rest of the fleet. It is not a contest to see who could build the best fighter but whose fleet is victorious at the end of the battle. With that Adm. Thorn adjourn the meeting, Capt. Richardson sends out stealth raptor's to explore the surrounding area and find out how far we are from Tauleer space.


	4. Chapter 4

How about some feedback guys is this worth continuing or is my writing style, English or grammar so atrocious I'm just wasting time. Never did anything like this before, and in college I never took a writing/English course that I didn't fail at least the first time and I would bet that shows.

Aftermath Chapter 4

It has been three days since the squadron entered this system they sent their reports back to fleet headquarters, and, were ordered to remain at their current location until fleet HQ could respond. The raptors that were sent out to survey the surrounding systems returned. They found several systems that would be worth further investigation; one appeared to have a civilization. Satellites were in orbit around it, but there is no sign of space travel, these people were taking their first steps into space. Other systems were found to be habitable and contained life but their degree of advancement if any was not known. Fleet headquarters responded that they are sending a ship they will have representatives from the Avalon shipyard that built our ships and a Senior Adm. they also found a Tauleer fleet of 10 battleships with at least 50 drones. Fleet HQ had confirmed that the support ships were drones. The ship Southern Star arrived with Adm. Moore on board he asked to meet immediately with Adm. Thorn

Well, Adm. Thorn you seem to have caused quite a bit of a commotion back in the colonies we did a survey of other ships in the fleet and found defects that should've been caught by the shipyard. They are being addressed by the yard back home, and I have brought with me 25 technicians who will be conducting the same surveys on your ships. We have enough materials on the Southern Star to build another Gideon if necessary. My being here may be awkward, but I will not interfere with your command. Also, you will be pleased to know that the diplomatic team you left at Draconian have been making progress. We are negotiating an arrangement with them. They will provide us with the tractor tech their mining vessels use. And we will help them with upgrading their computers. Also, we found out that their main combat ships were not those large vessels you encounter, but are smaller ships, which are both heavily armed and quite fast. Those larger vessels are used mainly as transport ships between their four colonies. And, although armed, they are still just glorified freighters. They felt that this was the prudent thing to do until they determined what our intentions were.

Now Adm. Thorn what are your intentions for handling these ships headed your way. Well, Adm. Moore I want to try something different. We have a stealth raptor shadowing the Tauleer ships; they will provide the coordinates to the destroyers Hera and Excelsior. They will exit hyperspace within 5 km of the enemy ships and then make a quick pass firing on the enemy ships engine blocks. Then as soon as they start taking any damage at all to their shields, they will reenter hyperspace to allow their shield emitters to cool down. They will repeat this until they destroyed several of the Tauleer ships or this tactic proves to be ineffective. The commander of the Hera is senior and will be in command.

In the Hera's CIC Lieut. Cmdr. Wilson was in contact with Major Stevenson on the Excelsior. We will exit hyperspace together; we will rely on the helm officers to keep us in sync and make a pass at the enemy ships firing on targets of opportunity. After passing their fleet, we will make a U-turn for another pass all the time maintaining the maximum speed that will not impede the helm officers in keeping us together. Stay on my port side upon exiting hyperspace. The two destroyers exited hyperspace at the location given by the stealth raptor. They found the Tauleer ships directly in front of them, the Hera and Excelsior climbed and then droped down on the enemy ships both destroyers firing on targets of opportunity. After exiting out the bottom of the enemy formation, they turned around and made another pass, with yet another 180-degree turn and a third pass, exiting to the rear of the enemy formation, and re-entering hyperspace. They exited hyperspace some distance away and contacted the stealth raptor to assess any damage they did and if they took any hits. They did damage the engines on two ships and received no damage to themselves. They did this maneuver again and found themselves below and behind the enemy fleet. They fired their plasma beams at several of the ships with each of the destroyer's beams targeting different ships, but this time, they did not turn around but exited back into hyperspace as soon as they came abreast to the enemy fleet. Lieut. Cmdr. Wilson knew that this time their shields did take some damage. As they no longer had, the element of surprise and their speed was slower. They returned to the Gideon's location and asked the stealth raptor for an assessment on the damage they did. Both of the destroyers had their shields reduced to 90%, which quickly returned to hundred percent. The stealth raptor reported that they disabled three of the battleships and damaged two others. Adm. Thorn had the stealth raptor leave a drone behind the Tauleer ships and return to the Gideon. Adm. Thorn convened a meeting on the Gideon with Lieut. Cmd. Wilson and Maj. Stevenson Adm. Moore requested he be allowed to be in attendance as an interested party. Lieut. Marley, who was the pilot of the stealth raptor, was also in attendance. Adm. Thorn asked Lieut. Cmd. Wilson to report to which he replied with your permission Adm. I think we should hear from Lieut. Marley, after all, he's the one that had the front row seat. Lieut. Marley stated that the first pass that was head-on and at a slight down angle only did minor damage to the ships, and they only received a few hits back to their shields because they were gone by the time the Tauleer had a chance to respond. But the second pass from the rear directly into the engine blocks did most of the damage and targeting each separate plasma beam achieved the greatest effectiveness. Lieut. Cmd. Wilson then stated that we need practice for the helm officers in keeping the ships in formation and even a better method for locking the targeting computers together. This tactic could prove to be a very deadly since it gave enemy ships very little time to respond. The only thing I would change is the first pass be from the rear at a slower speed since we will have the element of surprise and make full speed passes from opposite direction. And then make subsequent passes from the rear.

Adm. Thorn returned to CIC, he asked Cmdr. Richardson for any status that the drone sent back, we just got a message from the drone that the enemy ships have stopped. Adm. Thorn ordered the drone to be destroyed, I am confident that we can find them again if necessary. Let's give them some time and then see what they are doing. Adm. Thorn returned to the guest quarters provided to Adm. Moore. Adm. Moore was packing his bags you've only been here a few days Adm. are you leaving us so soon. Yes, the shipyard personnel have completed their preliminary surveys and have requisitioned from the southern star the supplies your engineering departments will need to install the upgrades. Also Capt. Winters has a good handle on the necessary upgrades to your targeting computers, so I think my being back at Fleet quarters, should take precedence, making the case for FLT drives on the new destroyers. So the squadron needs only one Adm. and after you buy me a drink, I'll be leaving. You can expect upgrades to your orders in the morning. I would recommend that you insure that the Tauleer are no longer following you before building a jump station because the people on those jump stations would be at the Tauleer mercy. And we have not found any limitations on the distance that can be between jump stations. Although this area is of interest, let's leave it to the Tauleer and Draconian. Yours is a mission of exploration not conquests.

You know Adm. Moore before you leave I have a wish list, which although I haven't thought it out completely yet. What I would like to see is a ship that is a combination of our destroyers and the drones. They would have their helms and targeting computers tied together so that they could operate in unison at speed, and by making passes on the enemy ships from hyperspace they would be able to destroy any ship I have seen so far, including Battlestars and Baseships while taking little or no damage. Adm. Thorn I didn't say anything before but, you're squadron is the only one that's finding anything of interest. Adm.'s Mackey and Silverman do find the occasional habitable planet but no sentiment life forms. Also, we are expanding your command we will be sending out another destroyer the Argir and a freighter vessel the Colonial Naval Ship Impass It will have labs and construction facilities to support Capt. Winters. 12 of the shipyard folks from Avalon will be offered permanent consulting positions and assigned to Capt. Winter's detachment. Since the Impass is a Colonial Naval Ship and as such has a civilian crew and captain; they were used quite extensively in the old Colonial Navy to support fleet logistics. Adm. Moore and the Southern Star returned to the colonies and two days later the Argir and Impass arrived. Capt. Winters relocated to the Impass before they continue their mission he requested a meeting with Adm. Thorn. What I would like to update you on is our, navigation control program, can now be used in hyperspace it will detect gravity signatures from anything larger than a small moon out to approximately 100 light years. This will reduce the times that we have to drop out of hyperspace to scan the surrounding areas. I also am assuming that I will return to the Gideon weekly for your status meetings, yes Adm. Thorn replied, since you will be on a different ship now I want to stay dialed in on all our projects. Adm. Thorn detected a slight smile was coming to Capt. Winters face, what is it Capt. are you finding your accommodations on the Impass satisfactory, I will be eager to return to the Gideon whenever necessary as you know civilian consultants are allowed the berthing privileges of a Lieut. Cmdr. so I will be eager to keep Cmdr. Richardson and Cmdr. Benson from coming to the Impass. Even my enlisted people have private accommodations. Also, I have my very own Raptor, so I will not have to be looking to the Gideon for transportation to other ships

The Gideon and the rest of the squadron entered hyperspace and continued their journey into the Pegasus arm of the galaxy. Two days later Adm. Thorn went to CIC to discuss the situation with Cmdr. Richardson. I haven't heard from you Cmdr. what are we finding. Well, once again I believe we had a slight failure of communications between us and fleet HQ about this new navigational control program. Yes, it will allow us better detection of systems in our area. But we still have to drop out of hyperspace occasionally to detect electromagnetic waves or warp signatures. As it is, This area of space has a low number of systems but later today this will change, and I was going to ask your permission to come out of hyperspace. Well, Cmdr. Richardson you can consider permission granted, this is boring find me something of interest. You know Adm. sometimes I like boring.

Later that afternoon while, Adm. Thorn was in his quarters, Adm. I am about to drop out of hyperspace we have several systems in the area that I would like to send Raptors to explore. Would you like to return to CIC? To which Adm. Thorn replied, I will be there in a moment. He entered CIC just as the Raptors were leaving the Gideon to investigate the nearby systems. Cmdr. Benson was also there he came over to Adm. Thorn and said Adm. I just got word from Fleet HQ, it seems somebody had the bright idea that Capt. Winters should be promoted to major, on your approval. When he transferred from the reserves, a letter was put in his jacket. In five years he would be allowed to resign his commission, and return to academia, you know this is unusual for a commissioned officer in the Colonial Navy, but it was the only way they could entice him and other scientists to volunteer for these types of missions. Well, Cmdr. Benson yes he's barely, as they say, housebroken, and for all his griping about all the military regulations that keep him from doing his job, I will bet you that he stays in the service. His griping is only confined to senior officers and the senior NCOs in his detachment will tell you he runs a pretty tight ship which is contradictory to the way he acts with us. Please inform him, no wait, I will do it at my next staff meeting. Adm. Thorn our Raptors are starting to report in, and one of them has found a system that appears to have a structure built around the sun. I believe scientists in the past have had theories about this; it is called a Dyson sphere. It is used to capture as much energy from the sun as possible and allow a civilization to expand without ever leaving their system. The structure is so large that when the raptor completed its jump it fell back to 5 ly from it, and it still can be detected on their scans they are remaining in stealth mode and awaiting further instructions. Have the raptor go quiet, the squadron will proceed to a location at least ten ly from the Raptor, and we will decide our next move.


	5. Chapter 5

Aftermath Chapter 5

The Colonial squadron arrived at their planned location they were approximately ten light years from the stealth raptor. The DRADIS operator reported that he had two vessels that have just left the sphere and will be at the stealth raptor location in 10 minutes. To which Adm. Thorn responded order the raptor to return to the Gideon. Have all ships proceed forward at 10% lightspeed. When the colonial squadron arrived 10,000 km from the unknown ships, they stopped. The communication officer reported that they were being hailed in standard Caprican. Adm. Thorn asked it to be put on the speakers. Unknown vessels this is the Xozen, please come to a full stop, and state your objectives, we do not wish to have a conflict with you, but we are more than prepared to defend ourselves and our home. Adm. Thorn asked the communications officer who had an open channel already established, how he should respond to them. To which the voice on the speaker's stated he should simply broadcast on any channel, and they will both intercept and decipher it. We are from the 12 colonies of Kobol, and we are on a mission of peaceful exploration. We would like to see if we have any mutual interests. Such as trade or cultural exchange. The alien responded with we are not interested in having any real contact with you. But you will find us to be good neighbors please do not come any closer than 100,000 km from our planet. If you stop there, we will send out a ship to assist you. Please put our location on your charts and refrain from exiting hyperspace here in the future. We will respect your wishes, but could we please meet with you so that we can both learn more about each other's societies. To which the alien voice said to wait for a moment, please.

In approximately 10 minutes the alien came back on the line and asked if he could come over to the Gideon. Two Vipers were sent over to the alien vessel to escort their shuttle back to the Gideon. Cmdr. Richardson asked Adm. Thorn if this was a good idea to which Adm. Thorn replied. It's a calculated risk, but if they met harm, I do not believe this is the way they would have proceeded. Adm. Thorn along with his command staff assembled in the landing bay, Cmdr. Benson suggested that they have their detachment of Marines in dress uniforms in the hanger bay, both as a sign of respect and for security purposes, to which Adm. Thorn agreed. The colonial welcoming party stood facing the alien shuttle with the Marines standing at attention behind them. The front of the shuttle opened in a clamshell fashion, and two individuals stepped off. I am Nueso Kalach, the protocol officer from the planet Arkhav. And this is my assistant Calasivoor. They were bipedal creatures about 5 feet tall and were human in appearance except their bodies were covered in a black scaly skin. Adm. Thorn stepped forward and introduced himself would you like to follow me to a conference room, they exited the landing bay and proceeded to a room where they were seated Adm. Thorn asked how is it you speak our language. To which Nueso Kalach replied we were monitoring your communications with the small vessel that first entered our system and was able to decipher your language then it was a simple process to build a device that translates for us. We are an ancient and solitary race we withdrew to our home system many thousands of years ago and began building what you refer to as a Dyson sphere. We found that exploring the galaxy seemed to involve us in countless wars. As a result, we decided to harness all the energy our sun puts out and expand our civilization here. To which Adm. Thorn asked aren't you concerned about having your entire civilization in one system. No from the previous eons of exploring our civilization resides on many different worlds. Some are stagnant, and some still follow the path of exploration. We never had the concept of colonies when individuals left the home world to settle other worlds; most ties were severed with the home world. And, would only come together for mutual defense or humanitarian reasons. Adm. Thorn explained that the Colonials were also confined to one system and after a calamity that almost wiped them all out they decided it was time for them to move out into the greater galaxy. He tactfully left the story of the Cylons out of the conversation, only referring to it as the great calamity. Adm. Thorn then asked Nueso Kalach if he knew of the Tauleer or the Draconian. To which he stated I remember, the Tauleer as being a very disagreeable race who think it's beneath them to contact or have interaction with others. Nueso Kalach assistant tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the screen the device they each had, oh yes the Draconian, the polar opposite of the Tauleer. You will find them to be a very straightforward race. I believe you'll find them eager for contact and trade; our ancestors had some interaction with them when they took their first steps into space.

Nueso Kalach stood up. We would like to leave now. Unless you have something else, you would like to discuss. I would like to reiterate that although not directly avoiding future contact we do not see how it would serve any purpose thank you. Adm. Thorn stood up and said, we will accompany you back to your shuttle, and we will respect your wishes. With that, the Arkhavians returned to their shuttle and left.

Cmdr. Richardson, take us back into hyperspace. Two days later Adm. Thorn was awakened by the beeping from his communication device. Cmdr. Richardson, this better be important as you realize it's 3 o'clock in the morning. Adm. Thorn this is not Cmdr. Richardson, I am the duty, communication officer, and we just got a priority message from Fleet HQ. They and Cmdr. Richardson asked me to call you as Adm. Moore would like to speak to both of you ASAP. To which Adm. Thorn replied he would be in CIC shortly. He met Capt. Richardson just as they were entering CIC, well Adm. you have any idea what's going on, no but I guess we'll find out in a moment. When they entered the communications officer said, I've set up a conference call with Fleet HQ. Adm. Moore will be presiding. With that Adm. Moore came on the speaker, Cmdr. Richardson, Adm. Thorn we have a situation developing back in the Draconian system. The Tauleer have attacked one of their colonies with a heavy loss of life, and although they are not directly blaming us it is felt that this is a result of our contact with the Tauleer you are ordered to return to the Draconian jump station and be prepared to render any assistance deem necessary. We are preparing BSG – 14 to also proceed to the Draconian system it should be there the day after tomorrow. Ambassador Sobel will update you upon your arrival.

The following day BSG-14 arrived, and a war council on the Battlestar Triton was held, With Adm. Moore, Adm. Thorn, Draconian Adm. Norgass, and Ambassador Sobel along with the Admiral's senior staff members. Ambassador Sobel stood at the podium gentlemen, we have two things to accomplish one we have to take the war to the Tauleer and of the four systems the Draconian have they believe the Tauleer will attack the Walsfiss system next, so we have to help them defend it. Adm. Moore said since I am the ranking officer fleet HQ has placed me in overall command. I will take BSG-14 to Walsfiss with the Draconian arriving 96 hours later; Adm. Thorn will remain here in reserve, in case the Tauleer show up anywhere else. I have the strongest squadron with three Battlestars but cannot match Adm. Thorn's squadrons in speed. So I think this is our most logical course of action. Adm. Thorn then asked Adm. Moore what tactics he will use. I will go old-school and stand toe to toe with them. I will also use both my Vipers and Raptors squadrons against their drone ships. The Draconians will have sole responsibility for the rest of their systems. Adm. Thorn will be our mobile reserve ready to appear wherever needed. The Draconian Adm. said I would suggest your moving your support ship to where our mining operation is located. If the Tauleer shows up, that will be the safest place in this system.

Adm. Moore proceeded to the Walsfiss system, his Battlestar group consisted of three Battlestars four heavy cruisers and six destroyers he had a complement of just under 300 Vipers with 100 Raptors. Adm. Moore was in CIC when the Tauleer, arrived. They had 16 battleships and 150 drones he ordered his Battlestars and cruisers to face them head on, with the destroyers attempting to do a flanking maneuver, the destroyers, and heavy cruisers were equipped with shields, but the Battlestars would rely on their 6 to 8-foot of armor. In one way the Battlestars rail guns had an advantage over plasma weapons in that they had unlimited range. But in reality, space was a very deadly place; all ships had the means to protect themselves from meters and micro-meters. As a result after 5-10km, the projectiles would blend in with all the other things in space that could kill you and were easily destroyed or avoided. But they did provide a spectacular light show however when they burned up in a planet's atmosphere. The Tauleer drones split into two groups and commenced attack runs on the Colonials Battlestars. The Raptors quickly dispatched six of the drone ships with their anti-ship missiles. The Vipers had little or no effect with their 30mm cannons, and their missiles, which as the smallest in the colonial inventory, were only marginally effective. The Viper pilots still consider themselves, to be the premiere colonial warriors. And very aggressively continue their attacks, if one made the mistake of getting between a drone and a battleship it was quickly destroyed by a beam traveling at light speed. The drones started to fall off distancing themselves from the colonial's ships while still staying in range. For the Vipers to attack them, they had to move closer to the battleships. Adm. Moore ordered his Viper squadrons to try to flank the drones and rely on missiles. He also ordered the heavy cruisers to also, engage the drones while the Battlestars concentrated on the battleships. Soon both groups were inflicting heavy damage on each other. The heavy cruisers were ordered to withdraw and then reengage to keep their shields above 50%. But the destroyers could not be afforded such a luxury as they were now in a position to attack the battleships with their bow mounted plasma beams. Adm. Moore Chief of Staff informed him that although all the Battlestars were taking damage from the battleship's heavy rail guns, they were still 100% functional. But they have already lost two destroyers and 25% of the Viper and Raptor squadrons. The Battlestars CIWS weapons were all but useless against the drones, and there were too few of the medium-sized rail guns. He ordered the Viper squadrons to land back on the Battlestars and re-arm with only missiles the Raptors were to stand off behind the Battlestars and attack the drones with anti-ship missiles. He said to the Triton's Cmdr. looks like this is going to be a race between our Raptors destroying the enemy drones, or the drones destroying the Battlestars. The heavy cruisers are making a considerable dent in the number of drones, but Adm. Moore said yes but we just don't have enough of them. Get me Adm. Thorn on the line, Thorn this is Moore I am going to give you the coordinates where you'll come out 5 km behind the enemy fleet I need you to do your hit and run tactics to take out as many of the battleships as possible while I concentrate on the drones. My destroyers are directly a beam of the enemy battleships, but they need time for the damage they are doing to affect the battle. Coordinate your firing solutions with the destroyers and concentrate on the battleships closest to them. A few moments later Adm. Thorn's squadron of one heavy cruiser and three destroyers exited hyperspace and made a pass on the battleships each of their nine plasma weapons targeted the engine blocks of different Tauleer battleship. As before Adm. Thorn's first pass was devastating with seven of the battleships falling out of formation once again the Tauleer were caught off guard. With his subsequent passes, he started to receive damaged to his shields, but the plasma beams easily slice into the enemy ships, engine blocks, with large chunks floating off into space, Or large explosions going off deep inside the ships. Again Adm. Moore called Adm. Thorn, Thorn keep up the pressure on those ships. To which Thorn replied, it appears you are down to just three destroyers I strongly recommend having them go into hyperspace and if they can, get their shields back above 50% before returning to the battle or you're going to lose your whole destroyer squadron. With your permission, I will have the Gideon join the other heavy cruisers in dealing with the drones, as I believe I have the Tauleer battleships well in hand. With this Adm. Moore had his Battlestars turned away, the drones continued to attack, but all but two of the enemy battleships could not follow. As Adm. Thorn's three destroyers continued to destroy or completely disabled the remaining battleships two of three destroyers from Adm. Moore's original squadron reappeared from hyperspace behind the two pursuing battleships and commenced attack runs. The Tauleer tried to get three of their battleships back in formation. The remaining drones proceeded to their location. Adm. Moore had his Raptors that still had anti-ship missiles left to attack them while the rest of the Raptors did combat landings aboard their Battlestar to be re-armed. The Vipers were re-launched. And, ordered to attack the remaining drones. Concentrate on their engine exhaust, with 30 mm cannon fire and missiles. soon a trail of disabled drones was left between the colonials ships and the two remaining now three battleships but if a Viper pilots got careless and passed in front of a drone they were quickly destroyed by the drones ion cannon. When Adm. Moore saw this he asked to be connected to the remaining Viper squadrons. Do not under any circumstances pass in front of an enemy ship and do not under any circumstances pass between the drones and the battleships. This area is deadly for to you, and you are much more effective making passes from behind and turning away to reengage as appropriate. Of the 150 drones, the Tauleer started with only ten managed to return to the remaining three battleships, when they did the Tauleer engage their jump engines and disappeared from the battlefield. By this time the Raptors had destroyed the rest of the Tauleer battleships with anti-ship missiles. The commander of the Triton said you did it Adm. this was a victory. Maybe Cmdr. But we lost at least three destroyers and more than half the Viper and Raptor pilots.

As Adm. Moore left CIC he turned to his Chief of Staff and said, have all ship commanders prepare damage and after action reports I will be in my office, and I would like to speak to Adm. Thorn. Draconian Adm. Norgass appeared out of hyperspace with six Draconian battle cruisers, they were about three-quarters the size of a

Battlestar and were armed with three large 200 mm rail guns and 24, 75 mm. Rail guns they have found that the 200 mm rail guns were sufficient to deal with the Tauleer battleships while the 75 mm were used on the drones. This is how their ships evolved after decades of battles with the Tauleer. When he got to his office Adm. Thorn was already on the line, well Adm. Moore do we have the butcher's bill yet. No, but it should come in shortly looks like we lost at least three destroyers and approximately 200 vipers and 50 raptors. If we like, we can return to the Draconian home system to start on repairs instead of bringing the Impass here. Adm. Norgass's sent six of their battle cruisers and will assume security for the system. We can have tugs here to tow any of our ships that require it back. The tractor technology that we got from them and with FTL engines installed allows us to tow ships in thru a jump; the towing field encircles the ship being towing and regardless of its structural condition it can be towed. That's why fleet headquarters and research and development were so eager to play nice with them.

5


	6. Chapter 6

Aftermath Chapter 6

Comments:

The continental crust is typically from 30 km (20 mi) to 50 km (30 mi) thick. On the Tauleer planet the crust is twice as thick.

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Adm. Thorn arrived back in the Draconian system, fleet headquarters had set out a mobile shipyard. The Battlestar Triton and the rest of Moore's squadron docked in the shipyard to be resupplied and refitted . Cmdr. Benson entered Adm. Thorn's office, Admiral, There is a conference set up with you, Moore and fleet headquarters tomorrow at 4 PM.

Adm. Thorn entered the briefing room on the Triton. Shortly Adm. Moore with his staff arrived. He had asked Adm. Thorn to be in the conference room a half hour before the meeting. Adm. Thorn, I wanted to talk to you before the meeting with HQ. Your mission is being scrubbed. To which Adm. Thorn replied you mean were going to stop exploring the galaxy. No, we're just going to go about it a much smarter way. You will still explore new solar systems but how we find them is going to be drastically different. We picked a nearby solar system and spun a large disk of mercury to create a large liquid mirror; this mirror will be approximately 10 km across. With it, we will be able to view solar systems all the way to the outer edge of the Pegasus arm of the galaxy, just about everything that a raptor could find out by entering a solar system we will be able to do from here. And then when we find something interesting a drone will proceed to that particular solar system before we send a fleet.

A Cmdr. Kelly came on the view screen since we're all here let's get this meeting started. The first order of business is what we won't be doing. We won't be installing the old-style FLT drives on the destroyers. We have resolved the problems with doing short hyperspace jumps so there is really no need. The new photonic quantum computers will allow us to build missiles with FLT drives, these missiles will be able to jump inside a ships flak field, shield or the atmosphere of a planet. Consequently, all our training for ship commanders will stress the importance of high-speed maneuverings and maintaining shield strength above 50%. We are going to take full advantage of the zero point energy generators and install shields on the Battlestars. Previously we had a problem with the shields around the pods, it seems they liked a smooth hull, this has been resolved. A fleet rehabilitation and modernization (FRAM) program have been started to upgrade to fleet. I will now turn a meeting over to Adm. Jenkins who will discuss how we will handle the Tauleer situation.

Adm. Jenkins came on the view screen, I have some news that you may not have been aware of we sent three Battlestar groups and a Draconian fleet of 37 ships to the Tauleer system. They were successful in destroying the last of the Tauleer battleships and their drones, we are currently blockading the planet. The Draconian are hunting down and destroying any Tauleer battleships they find. The Tauleer must import a large amount of foodstuffs to their planet, so as long as a blockade is in place is believed that they could not hold out for more than a month or so. Adm. Thorn you are hereby ordered to proceed to the Tauleer system take command of the blocking fleet and offer them terms for their surrender.

Adm. Thorn arrived in the Tauleer system with the Heavy Cruiser Gideon and Destroyers Hera, Excelsior and Argir. He ordered the destroyers to stay one light year away from the system. He met with the Adm. in charge of the blockading fleet. Adm. Johnson what is the current situation with the Tauleer, to which he replied, they have been sending drones up from the planet surface to engage us, I have been using my destroyers to engage them and we have so far been successful in destroying them while taking only light damage. We nuked all of their shipyards and believe they cannot build any ships larger than the drones without our knowing about it.

There is something we have seen on the surface that I do not quite understand, they seem to be building holes in groups of 12 across the surface. We bombed a few of them but how much damage can you do to just a hole in the ground, right now the current belief is, its how they do their mining on the planet. Adm. Thorn interjected I have three destroyers one light year from here order your destroyers that have been attacking the drones to join up with them. I assume you are making runs on the drones from hyperspace they could just wait there for the Tauleer to launch anything from the surface. Adm. Johnson asked I had been keeping 5 destroyers with the fleet as a quick reaction force, should I continue this, to which Adm. Thorn replied, yes, I was going to ask about that.

With that Adm. Thorn returned to the Gideon, when he arrived back in his office he sent for Cmdr. Benson. Cmdr. Benson, please start transmitting a message on all known channels that the Tauleer use, have the diplomats sign off on it but basically to start off with it should just say we wish to talk. Several hours later the Gideon began transmitting a message on all Tauleer channels.

At about 3:30 AM the next morning, Lieut. Johnson the DRADIS operator, Sir just detected 48 possible nuclear explosions directly below us, they were beneath the surface of the planet. The Battlestar Hera is broadcasting a Mayday, the BattleStar Virgo is reporting heavy damage, and their shields are down. Inform, Adm. Thorn and ask him to report to CIC, Adm. Thorn quickly got up as he wasn't sure he was awoken by his phone or the ships klaxon sounding general quarters. He arrived at CIC at the same time as Cmdr. Richards, who asked the OOD for a situation report.

We detected 48 possible nuclear explosions directly below us and 192 objects sped by us at .2% lightspeed. We are currently evaluating how this could of occurred. We lost the Battlestar Hera and the BattleStar Virgo is dead in space. I am sending a tug to the Virgo and will have it towed to a higher orbit. Adm. Thorn then said to Cmdr. Richards, have the Virgo towed to where the destroyers are and let's get everybody working on what this new threat is. Is there any other sign of activity on the surface. The DRADIS operator spoke up Adm. I saw them coming to which Adm. Thorn replied, why the hell didn't you say something, the Lieut. replied because it was over before I could report anything. First, there was a group of many contacts and then they were passed us as quickly as it is taking me to tell this. I did not have time to report anything.

Okay, let's get the scientists working on this and see what we are dealing with. Cmdr. Richardson moved the Gideon to orbit 100,000 km from the surface of the planet Cmdr. Benson ordered the fleet to follow. As soon as our science team can brief us on what occurred wake me, and have all appropriate parties in the conference room.

On his way back to his quarters Adm. Thorn mind was spinning. Hundred thousand kilometers that's almost 63,000 miles, would that put us far enough out to react to anything coming from the surface. Would it allow the Tauleer to get a ship off the surface and do a jump before we can target it essentially breaking the blockade? Adm. Thorn spent the rest of the night laying and his bunk without ever truly going to sleep he was almost glad when his communicator went off at about 6:30 AM in the morning.

Cmdr. Benson reported that the science team believed they have an answer to what occurred. Everybody assembled in Adm. Thorn's conference room including a new Lieut. from Major Winters old R&D detachment. Adm. Thorn, said Cmdr. Benson this report will be given by Lieut. Stokes who is the head of our science team. To which Adm. Thorn spoke up and said you come highly recommended Lieut. by your old boss, Major Winters don't screw up. He was joking but the already nervous Lieut. almost knocked over the podium.

Well, we now know what those holes are that the Tauleer were digging on the surface of their planet. They are round holes 30ft across and approximately 3 km deep with a nuclear charge at the bottom. Approximately 1 km from the nuclear charge were four circular steel plates, these plates were the same diameter as the hole 30 feet and are 4 inches thick. They were solid and made of a substance similar to our steel so each one weighed approximately 46 tons. We arrived at their weight by working back from the damage they did to our ships. Each hole had four of these plates and when a ship would pass directly overhead the nuclear device would be set off. Think of a shotgun buried in the ground with just the tip of the barrel sticking out of the surface.

Seven of them hit the Hera all in approximately the same area this is why her shields failed probably the first three or four took out the shields and the rest literally tore through the ship. The Virgo was hit by six and she was lucky because they were spread out along her shields so only the last plate actually impacted with her hull, if this had hit any other ship in the fleet that ship probably would've been destroyed. But fortunately, Battlestars still have their six-foot of armor in addition to the shields.

Lieut. Stokes stated perhaps this would go faster if I open it up to questions, Cmdr. Benson asked if they're not guided why can't we simply move out away. At .2% the speed of light they're moving at almost 4000 miles a second so by the time we detect them we only have a fraction of a second to react If we move out farther than that; the for sake of argument let's say 40,000 miles that will give us 10 seconds from the time they leave the surface of the planet till impact. Also, I would like to add that the 63,000 miles that we are now at, is to close. They are not firing at us because I believe the nuclear devices are at a premium, Or we are far enough from the surface that they can land ships before we can react, so why waste a shot.

Adm. Thorn asked can't we just avoid the areas that have these weapons. The Lieut. replied yes but is likely that they have installed them in areas that we don't know about. Maybe they just put 12 holes in the ground but the real installation is to the left or right. Some canvas or netting and they are effectively camouflaged. Also to a slight degree, they can be aimed by how the nuclear devices are placed true it's not much of an angle at most maybe 1° or 2°. But the farther we get away from the planet the more area can be covered. This is why they send 192 projectile's in one shot.

Adm. Thorn went on to ask, what about targeting them with the weapons, we can detect them almost the instant they leave the surface and then have the weapons sitting on auto and scanning the space directly beneath us. To which Lieut. Stokes replied, okay, if we caught them in the first thousand or so feet that would be possible, but now we're talking about milliseconds of reaction time. And as they go through the atmosphere at that speed they are slowly turning into a molten blob of steel. Think of what happens to an asteroid coming the other direction, and that asteroid is moving a lot slower.

The plasma weapons would simply cut through it but not have any real effect, as now you would have a blob of steel, with nothing more than a six-inch hole cut through its center. The rail guns would have no effect as a rail guns projectile would have an insignificant amount of kinetic energy compared with 46 tons traveling at .2% of light speed. So no matter what we do all the mass that is launched from the surface in this manner is going to go into space, and anybody who gets in its way is going to have a very bad day.

Over the next several weeks the Colonials and the Draconian played a game of cat and mouse with the Tauleer jumping freighters full of food stocks close to the planet surface and landing before the blockading fleet had time to react. Although the Colonials didn't lose any ships one Draconian battleship was lost when their commander got careless. Fleet headquarters ordered Adm. Thorn to stop any mass re-supply operations and to continue to target any sign of major shipbuilding with missiles while the whole situation was reassessed.

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